I am baffled by the usage of "for" in the following sentence:
A girl asks a guy "Would you kiss me for 100 dollars?"
Does she mean:
A: You kiss me and you get 100 dollars
or
B: You give me 100 dollars and you can kiss me?
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4It's ambiguous.– Hot LicksCommented Jun 19, 2020 at 12:15
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7The ambiguity will always resolve itself. Money must change hands before any kisses occur.– Nigel JCommented Jun 19, 2020 at 12:57
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The girl actually knows the answer, and depending on what that answer is, you could've been up a hundred bucks by now. None of us here know the answer, and none of us in here will pay you even just a nickel. Do people now refuse to talk to girls even if there's potentially a $100 in it for them? Humanity.– RegDwigнtCommented Jun 22, 2020 at 22:03
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5 Answers
It depends on the context.
"Would you X for $100?" could mean you get $100, as compensation for your efforts, to do X. For example, "Would you mow the lawn for $100?"
It could also mean you pay $100, as compensation for a benefit you receive, where you get to do X. For example, "Would you eat as much as you want in your favorite restaurant for $100?"
In your example, though, it is somewhat ambiguous, as it's not clear if the girl and guy have the same understanding of the meaning of the kiss. Is it something the guy couldn't care less about doing, and have to be offered compensation to do? That would be A. Or it is something he would like to do and might be willing to pay for it? That would be B.
You would assume that the person asking the question is offering the money. If the person asking the question wanted to receive the money they would ask something like "Would you pay $100 to kiss me?"
So the plain meaning of the question is your option A.
However a sign, for example at a school fair, saying "Kiss me for $100" would mean your option B. On the sign it would be an offer to provide a service, but the original is phrased as a request to receive a service.
That is not to say that a statement cannot have its meaning changed, even reversed, by context and tone of voice. If you are a boy in front of the above-mentioned sign and your girlfriend asks you "would you kiss me for $100" you had better assume she means "would you pay", even though her words technically mean she is offering to pay.
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2You would certainly assume that the person asking the question is offering the money if the question was "Would you cut my hair for 100 dollars?". I think the ambiguity only occurs here because girls don't usually offer to pay for kisses. Commented Jun 19, 2020 at 9:12
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2@KillingTime Indeed. Generally if a trade is offered where the balance consists of money and actions, the person offering the action is the person that gets paid by the person receiving the offer. However, in this case there is a complication that either party could be seen as the person offering the action, even if they aren't the person making the offer. After all, kisses could be considered a sexual action, and unless the context is professional prostitution, sexual actions generally provide enjoyment for both parties. Note that the exchange of money does not mean professional prostitution.– NzallCommented Jun 19, 2020 at 13:03
Consider this similar question:
- Should I provide an armed guard for a thousand dollars?
Is that asking whether to send a guard to protect or retrieve that amount of money? Is it asking whether to purchase that guard’s services at that price? If both are possible, is one the more likely and why? Should alternatives be considered?
Having descended to us from the Old English of a thousand years ago and beyond, the preposition for has come to be used in numerous different ways, many fairly different from one another. Broadly speaking two of these are “from what cause” and “to what effect”, where the former places emphasis on something in the past and the latter places emphasis on something in the future. If you dig a pit for fun, is this because it was somehow fun to dig it for its own sake or because you intend to use it for future fun of some sort? Digging a hole for buried gold that may have been secretly buried there is different from digging a hole for capturing wildlife secretly passing by under cover of darkness.
Once money enters the picture, however, the native speaker’s mind quickly settles on those senses appropriate to prices and payments, purchases and sales. It settles on this figure as meaning the cost of the exchange, not the purpose or destined effect.
There is therefore no ambiguity in “Kiss me for a $100?” that a native speaker would ever routinely pause to consider. It’s only a simple financial transaction, a this-for-that if you would. It’s just like when bananas are three for a dollar: that’s just how many pieces of fruit you get for that particular price. It is not like three competitors for a million-dollar award that they’re each striving to win for themself alone.
Usually a phrase of the form
Would you do some action for some amount of money?
is an offer to pay the other person to perform the specified task. E.g.
Would you pick up my groceries for $15.
On the other hand, if you want to ask for compensation for performing an action, it would usually be phrase like
I will do some action for some amount of money.
For example:
I will pick up your groceries for $15.
There may be exceptions to this general pattern, though. Consider who is actually gaining from the action, and then expect that the money will flow in the other direction.
Context also comes into play. If the girl is operating a kissing booth at a fair (this is almost certainly a dated reference, I can't imagine it still happening in the #metoo era), she might ask the question in the form you quote. It's clear that the patron is getting the benefit of the kiss, so they pay for the opportunity to kiss the girl.
'For' could be used to say 'In exchange for something' Here, A means that you(B) kiss me, and in exchange for that kiss ,take 100 dollars.
